Factors Affecting National Interests in the Aftermath of Post 1990 Armed Conflict in Nepal

Abstract

National Interest to a particular country is often shaped and prioritized by various variables including independence, distinctiveness, territorial integrity and socio-cultural determinants. Nepal’s national interest depends on thesecurity vision in the aftermath of violent conflict, development initiatives based on utilization of available natural resources and state policies for assuring inclusiveness, social cohesion and justice. Nepal experienced a ten years long armed conflict since 1996 to 2006 that affected a range of social, political and economic dimensions along with security apparatus of the country. Though the fundamental attributes of national interest such as territorial and political sovereignty and the core values remain constant, security policy and strategies are found to be evolving in the nascent democracy often shaped by the ability to identify security threats. With the aim of developing a causal relationship between national interest and security vision, security policy, identification of security threats, quantitative analysis is conducted by adopting SPSS and Karl Pearson’s Correlation tools. Moreover, Nepal’s new security policy has been analyzed in the aftermath of violent conflict. This paper draws the conclusion that higher the ability of political leaders to identify the security vision, the achievement of national interest is higher. This also depicts if security vision is closely linked with the political values the promotion of national interest is high. Setting the context on political change and the security strategy, it is admitted that new form of government induces additional security concern which if not identified may challenge the means of ensuring national security.